The plane ride home was strained. James was his usual brooding self, but there was something else on his mind. His wife, I suspected, despite his denials any time I questioned him about her.
Like me, he’d taken a girl back to his hotel room. Jade—the friend of Marie—had managed to get further than Marie, takingallher clothes off before James had kicked her out of his room. When I’d asked him why he hadn’t fucked her, he muttered something about being tired and not in the mood.
Itseemedhe was using the same excuse I was sticking with.
We barely spoke for the entire journey, and every so often, I cast surreptitious glances at my best friend, finding him staring at his phone with a crease between his browthatgrew deeper every time I looked his way.
Figuring the psycho had installed cameras in Willow’s bedroom so he could keep a close eye on whatever she was up to, I left him to his stalking. It wasn’t as if I could criticize. My phone was burning a hole in my pocket, and the need to get it out and load up the app linked to the cameras around Kiera’s house was all-consuming.
But I resisted.
I’d spent most of the night awake with Kiera on my brain, and I fucking hated it. Especially when it reached the pointthatthe only way I could get my boner to go away was to fuck my hand while remembering what her cunt tasted like.
I should never have started playing this game with her. It didn’t occur to me for one secondthatit would come back and bite me on the ass. I thought I couldjusttoy with her andthenforget about her, but she’d somehow wormed her way back into my head.
The answer was simple. Stop. Delete the number for the phone I’d given her. Ask Zayden and Brody to remove the cameras from the house and go back to pretending like she didn’t exist. I’d managed it so well for ten years, it would be easy to forget her before she sank her devious claws in too deep.
But I knew I wouldn’t do any of those things.
I hadn’t destroyed her yet.
Onlythenwould I leave her alone. Broken. A shell of the person she was before.
The same way she’d treated me.
No. I wasfarfrom playing with her.
Before the plane landed, I’d promised myselfthatI’d give it another day or two before I surprised Kiera with my next visit. It was my way of provingthatI wasn’t growing addicted to her, andthatI could pick her up and drop her whenever I damn well chose.
Easier said than done when Dr. Andrews emailed me with Kiera’s examination results. She was clean as a whistle. Plus, he’d confirmedthatshe was protected from pregnancy, and since readingthatemail, the Little General had grown a mind of his own, demanding we hunt Kiera down andfinallyget to feel what her pussy was like.
Unknowingly, James helped with my plan to keep my mind off his sister. He’d discoveredthattwo of his staff members had stolen an antique vase—an old family heirloomthatheld no monetary value, but was invaluable to the Carter legacy—from within his house, and was planning on stealing something else.
After a littlechatwith the two idiots, resulting in one of them paralyzed from the shoulders down, and the other in a comathathe’d unlikely wake from, James had asked me to track down his vase.
It was piss-easy work; all I had to do was retrace the steps of the morons who had only gone as far as the other side of the city to sell the vase, but it kept my attention from the person I was trying my hardest not to think about.
Two days later, I waited in James’ office, having been let in by his housemaid, Edith. He soon followed, storming into his office like a whirlwind and slamming the door behind him. Good to see his mood hadn’t improved.
“Well?”he barked, sitting behind his desk.
James had known me long enough to knowthatI didn’t appreciate being spoken to like a piece of shit. He was my friend, my business partner, and one day, we’d be Legion board members together.
But if he wanted to be an asshole,thenI’d be one back.
“When are you going to introduce me properly to your wife?”I asked, grinning at him, knowing it would wind him the fuck up.
“I’m not.”
I relaxed into my chair, allowing my smirk to widen.“You can’t keep her locked up forever.”
He raised a brow, his tone turning dark.“Wanna bet?”
I snorted. I wouldn’t have put it past James to keep his poor wife locked up for the rest of her days. James had a fucked up upbringing, there were no words to describejusthow savage his father was. While James wasn’t quite as cruel as his father, he certainly had some vicious tendenciesthathe’d picked up from his childhood.
“Shereallyis a lucky girl,”I replied, unable to resist pushing him a little more.
His features contorted into a snarl.“Can we get on with business? Your incessant talk about my wife is beginning to piss me off.”
